It's probably not politically correct to say so, and telling you this
isn't going to win me any points with feminists, but women in
relationships are followers. They naturally fall into the
follower role. What that means is that they provide the support role,
and they also look to the individual in the leadership role (the man) to
provide answers, guidance, decision-making, and fairness. They also
rely on him to make them happy and content, since as followers relying
on someone else to make the main decisions that affect their lives,
their ability to have their needs met, and happiness fostered and
upheld, is to a large extent dependent upon his actions.
When a woman is happy in a relationship, she tells her man he's doing a great job. When she's unhappy in a relationship, she tells him he's not making her happy. And when she strays from a man she's been seeing, she tells him it's his fault.
And, to be honest, ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I agree with that view; she's right. When relationships fail, it's nearly always the man's fault. Relationships are a partnership – but they're an unequal partnership.
Men are responsible for their women's happiness. Men are responsible for keeping their women satisfied and content. And when men lose women, whether to boredom, anger, apathy, or other men, they usually have no one to blame but themselves. Somewhere along the line, a woman's man has failed to meet her needs, and because of that, she left.
Most Western women will not outright agree that men are leaders in relationships and women are followers. Most of them will tell you that a relationship is a partnership between equals, because Western society has tended for the past fifty years or so to view relationships this way. If you look at Western society before about 1960 or so – and if you look at any other society on this planet right now, today – the belief is completely different, however. In every other society today and throughout history, except for ours right now, men are and were viewed as the leaders in relationships, and women the followers. Women are typically protected, and have full rights under the law to own property, to separate from husbands they no longer wish to be with, and all other rights accorded to men, but from a cultural standpoint it's simply understood that it's the man who leads the relationship. Now, it might be that all other societies in the world – and our own society, pre-1960 – in fact, all of humanity since the dawn of civilization, with the exclusion of the Western world post-1960 – has absolutely no idea what it's talking about and simply doesn't understand male-female dynamics... or, it might just be that our own society has gotten a little carried away with the gender-equality issue, and forgotten that being equal does not equal being the same.
Men and women are different. And men and women play different roles in relationships, just like they play different roles pretty much everywhere else. The societies that understand these differences, accept them, and embrace them tend to have far lower divorce rates and more effective and satisfying long-term partnerships between couples.
The chief point of our discussion here on gender roles in relationships, though, is that it's a man's responsibility to give his woman what she needs. Any man who does not believe that, or decides to shirk his responsibility to his woman because he doesn't think he should have to do anything other than whatever it is he wants to do, is probably not going to hold onto his girl for all that long. Because the woman plays the role of follower, she is dependent on her man to live up to this responsibility – or else she becomes bored, resentful, discontent, or unhappy. But in order to do that, to give his woman what she wants, a man's got to have some idea of what women want in the first place.
And most men don't have a clue.
When a woman is happy in a relationship, she tells her man he's doing a great job. When she's unhappy in a relationship, she tells him he's not making her happy. And when she strays from a man she's been seeing, she tells him it's his fault.
And, to be honest, ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, I agree with that view; she's right. When relationships fail, it's nearly always the man's fault. Relationships are a partnership – but they're an unequal partnership.
Men are responsible for their women's happiness. Men are responsible for keeping their women satisfied and content. And when men lose women, whether to boredom, anger, apathy, or other men, they usually have no one to blame but themselves. Somewhere along the line, a woman's man has failed to meet her needs, and because of that, she left.
Most Western women will not outright agree that men are leaders in relationships and women are followers. Most of them will tell you that a relationship is a partnership between equals, because Western society has tended for the past fifty years or so to view relationships this way. If you look at Western society before about 1960 or so – and if you look at any other society on this planet right now, today – the belief is completely different, however. In every other society today and throughout history, except for ours right now, men are and were viewed as the leaders in relationships, and women the followers. Women are typically protected, and have full rights under the law to own property, to separate from husbands they no longer wish to be with, and all other rights accorded to men, but from a cultural standpoint it's simply understood that it's the man who leads the relationship. Now, it might be that all other societies in the world – and our own society, pre-1960 – in fact, all of humanity since the dawn of civilization, with the exclusion of the Western world post-1960 – has absolutely no idea what it's talking about and simply doesn't understand male-female dynamics... or, it might just be that our own society has gotten a little carried away with the gender-equality issue, and forgotten that being equal does not equal being the same.
Men and women are different. And men and women play different roles in relationships, just like they play different roles pretty much everywhere else. The societies that understand these differences, accept them, and embrace them tend to have far lower divorce rates and more effective and satisfying long-term partnerships between couples.
The chief point of our discussion here on gender roles in relationships, though, is that it's a man's responsibility to give his woman what she needs. Any man who does not believe that, or decides to shirk his responsibility to his woman because he doesn't think he should have to do anything other than whatever it is he wants to do, is probably not going to hold onto his girl for all that long. Because the woman plays the role of follower, she is dependent on her man to live up to this responsibility – or else she becomes bored, resentful, discontent, or unhappy. But in order to do that, to give his woman what she wants, a man's got to have some idea of what women want in the first place.
And most men don't have a clue.
You have an interesting blog. thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your posts.
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